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EDST 498M: Staying Well In Your Work: Wellbeing for Teachers
July 25 – August 11 (Tuesday to Friday) | 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Format: In-Person
The purpose of this course is to have the participants gain a more fulsome understanding of how we might more fully integrate our personal and professional lives by attending to our overall well-being. Teaching – much like many other professions – is a very personal undertaking, requiring that we bring our whole selves into our professional craft; at the same time, much of our growth as educators and professionals focuses on professional development. Therefore, this course aims to explore how we might integrate our personal and professional lives with a focus on our overall well-being. The general objective for this course is to explore a wide range of theories around personal and professional well-being, and to have the participants engage with those ideas in an interactive, experiential way in a bid to gain a wider array of tools in their well-being toolkit. Participants will engage in an iterative cycle of learning and self-reflection throughout the entire course; the objective of this is for the participants to gain more clarity around well-being so that the participants can enjoy a deeply meaningful and fully integrated career in education. Further to that, the learning will be transferable to teaching for the core competencies within the Ministry of Education’s provincial curriculum.
Many concepts and topics will be covered in this course, framed through questions such as these:
1. How does the nature of storytelling serve as a unifying thread for our lives?
2. How do we come to understand ourselves and our emotional style?
3. How do we gain a greater sense of self-awareness?
4. How does mindful awareness connect to our personal and professional well-being?
5. How does meaning connect to happiness and well-being?
6. How do we begin to integrate stillness within the busyness of education in order to foster a greater sense of well-being?
7. How do we navigate the vulnerability of exploring our inner lives?
8. How do we bring our whole selves to our work in a meaningful, life-affirming way?
9. How do we overcome our fear of change? 10. How do we use self-knowledge to decrease our stress level and increase our well-being?
After completing this course, students will be able to demonstrate a greater understanding of the following, how:
- we use story to understand our lives
- meaning relates to happiness and overall well-being
- we can integrate our personal and professional lives as educators
- to cultivate a more mindful awareness in our lives
- to navigate the challenges and vulnerability of change
- a focus on wholehearted living increases our personal and professional well-being
- to navigate the inner landscape of our personal and professional lives
- to infuse our lives with a certain degree of stillness and equanimity
Further to this, participants will acquire a greater capacity for expressing their ideas, thoughts, and reflections both in writing and in conversation.
Adrian Zuyderduyn
Adrian Zuyderduyn has been an educator within the Central Okanagan Public Schools since 2000. Having taught both middle and secondary school for 16 years, he then transitioned into a school leadership role as an elementary school vice-principal, spending six years in elementary school before recently joining a middle school. Adrian completed his Master of Arts under the guidance of Dr. Sabre Cherkowski, researching how school leaders might explore their inner landscape in community; finding a passion for this field of research, he intends to pursue a doctoral degree in this area. Adrian is part of a number of committees within the Central Okanagan Public Schools, particularly around personal and professional wellness, along with the school district’s work regarding the Equity in Action Agreement and its focus on anti-racism. Adrian is the father of two teenage girls, one with special needs, and they are his inspiration for growing as both a person and a school leader. Adrian loves the outdoors and spends his summers in wide open spaces. As someone who loves rich conversation around meaningful topics, Adrian is very much looking forward to engaging with the participants in this course; teacher wellbeing is extremely important within an education system that is both demanding and complex, and staying well at work is fundamental in order to flourish in this profession.
How to register
To register for courses, please visit the Student Information Service Centre (SISC).
Register for Term two (July/August) courses via the Student Information Service Centre (SISC). If you intend on taking a 400-level course, please ensure that you receive prior approval by your graduate supervisor using this form.
If you are looking to transfer a course into UBC Vancouver, or another institution, please confirm transfer credit will be approved prior to registering for a UBC Okanagan course.
*It is the student’s responsibility to ensure that the course is accepted towards the completion of a program.
Register for Term two (July/August) courses via the Student Information Service Centre (SISC). You must have current Summer registration eligibility. If not, please email sie.education@ubc.ca.
If you are looking to transfer a course into UBC Vancouver, or another institution, please confirm approval of transfer credit prior to registration.
*It is the student’s responsibility to ensure that the course is accepted towards the completion of a program.
To register for a course, you will first need to submit an online application via Education Planner BC portal.
- Sign up for your EducationPlannerBC Account and follow the instructions to complete your applicant profile.
- Select University of British Columbia as the institution you want to apply to
- Select the upcoming Winter Session: September – December
- Select “Access Studies”
- Under “Access Studies” section, indicate that your program of interest is the Okanagan School of Education’s Summer Institute in Education Summer Session May – August.
- Once all necessary fields are filled in, click the “Save” button at the bottom of the page.
- You will be prompted to review your EPBC application and pay an application fee.
Once you have paid the application fee, email nondegree.ok@ubc.ca if you want UBC to process it quicker. If not, it will take three to five business days for UBC to admit you.
Please contact sie.education@ubc.ca with your UBC student number and courses of interest.